Welcome to NOVA!

We exist to provide substance use, mental health and co-occurring treatment services, foster homes for abused/neglected children and support services for families involved in the child welfare system. Our services bring hope and change to the lives of those in need in our community. With your help, we can make a difference. Our website provides ways for you to learn more, get involved or get the help you need. Thank you for visiting. Your support is appreciated.

Programs

Our programs are designed to further our mission and provide much needed behavioral health and child welfare services. Take a look.

Events

Events and fundraisers help us raise awareness and generate crucial resources to serve our community. Join us at our next event and see how you can get involved. Find out more.

Careers

7 Ideas for Random Acts of Kindness

Have you ever had a moment in life when someone you didn’t know did something kind for you? How did the time make you feel? How did you respond in the moment? The famous Greek fabulist and storyteller Aesop once said, “No act of kindness—however small—is ever wasted.”

When you strive to live an altruistic lifestyle, you can’t help but give kindness out to others around you, whether you know them or not. These random acts of kindness brighten other people’s days, give them joy and remind them they’re not alone in the world. However, random acts of kindness don’t just happen; we often have to be very intentional with them. If you strive to live an intentionally altruistic lifestyle, you’ve come to the right place to learn more. Here are seven ideas for random acts of kindness.

1. Pay for the next person in line.
One easy way to give a random act of kindness is to simply pay for the next person in line. Whether you’re at a gas station, a coffee shop or even a vending machine around the office, consider paying for the next person in line. Not only can this brighten someone else’s day, but it might also encourage them to pay for the following person, and go right down the line.

2. Give a compliment.
Use today as an opportunity to give someone else a compliment, whether you know them or not. Give out a compliment to a stranger about her hair, or his shoes or their car. Compliments naturally lift us up and encourage us, and are the perfect way to share kindness with others around you throughout your day.

3. Tell someone they matter.
For people who might be a little bit closer to you, like family or friends, share kindness with them by telling them they matter. We often forget to thank the people in our lives for everything they do for us. Instead, use this time as an opportunity to reach out to your loved ones and tell them how much they matter to you.

4. Share a book with another.
Books are a great way to communicate valuable information, powerful stories and yes—even kindness. If you read a great book, consider sharing it with another person. This could be something as simple as recommending a book to your friend or family member, or even leaving a book behind in a coffee shop for someone else to take advantage of.

5. Open up your home.
Show kindness in your community by opening up your home to people—or animals—in need. Invite friends, family and community members into your home for dinner, parties or games. Let someone who needs a place to stay crash on your couch for a weekend. Or, invite an animal in need into your home through a fostering program. When you open up your home for kindness, you naturally encourage others to do the same.

6. Have a meal with someone.
Speaking of dinner, share kindness with another by having a meal with someone—and then paying for it. Food can be used as a great bonding mechanism. It helps us lower our walls, relax and let the conversation flow. Show someone you care by inviting them out for coffee, lunch or even dinner to get to know them better and share a valuable meal together.

7. Donate what you can.
Finally, one of the easiest ways you can promote random acts of kindness is by donating what you can to your favorite nonprofit organization. Whether you give your time, talents, gently used goods or finances, you can make a valuable difference in your community through donating. See what you can donate and make someone’s day with a random act of kindness.

If you want to live a more altruistic lifestyle, try taking advantage of these random acts of kindness. Whether you give back to a stranger, someone you know or your entire community, you can brighten someone’s day and share kindness with them.

Privacy Policy

What Information Do We Collect?
When you visit our website you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website.

Personal Information You Choose to Provide
We may request that you voluntarily supply us with personal information, including your email address, postal address, home or work telephone number and other personal information for such purposes as correspondence, placing an order, requesting an estimate, or participating in online surveys.
If you choose to correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone.

Website Use Information
Similar to other websites, our site may utilize a standard technology called "cookies" (see explanation below, "What Are Cookies?") and web server logs to collect information about how our website is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our website, and the sites visited just before and just after ours. This information is collected on an aggregate basis. None of this information is associated with you as an individual.

How Do We Use the Information That You Provide to Us?
Broadly speaking, we use personal information for purposes of administering our business activities, providing service and support and making available other products and services to our customers and prospective customers. Occasionally, we may also use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. The lists used to send you product and service offers are developed and managed under our traditional standards designed to safeguard the security and privacy of all personal information provided by our users. You may at any time to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers.

What Are Cookies?
Cookies are a feature of web browser software that allows web servers to recognize the computer used to access a website. Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored by a user's web browser on the user's hard drive. Cookies can remember what information a user accesses on one web page to simplify subsequent interactions with that website by the same user or to use the information to streamline the user's transactions on related web pages. This makes it easier for a user to move from web page to web page and to complete commercial transactions over the Internet. Cookies should make your online experience easier and more personalized.

How Do We Use Information Collected From Cookies?
We use website browser software tools such as cookies and web server logs to gather information about our website users' browsing activities, in order to constantly improve our website and better serve our users. This information assists us to design and arrange our web pages in the most user-friendly manner and to continually improve our website to better meet the needs of our users and prospective users.
Cookies help us collect important business and technical statistics. The information in the cookies lets us trace the paths followed by users to our website as they move from one page to another. Web server logs allow us to count how many people visit our website and evaluate our website's visitor capacity. We do not use these technologies to capture your individual email address or any personally identifying information about you.

Notice of New Services and Changes
Occasionally, we may use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. As a user of our website, you will be given the opportunity to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers by clicking on a response box when you receive such an offer or by sending us an email request.

How Do We Secure Information Transmissions?
When you send confidential personal information to us on our website, a secure server software which we have licensed encrypts all information you input before it is sent to us. The information is scrambled en route and decoded once it reaches our website.
Other email that you may send to us may not be secure unless we advise you that security measures will be in place prior to your transmitting the information. For that reason, we ask that you do not send confidential information such as Social Security, credit card, or account numbers to us through an unsecured email.

How Do We Protect Your Information?
Information Security -- We utilize encryption/security software to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information we collect from unauthorized access or disclosure and accidental loss, alteration or destruction.
Evaluation of Information Protection Practices -- Periodically, our operations and business practices are reviewed for compliance with organization policies and procedures governing the security, confidentiality and quality of our information.
Employee Access, Training and Expectations -- Our organization values, ethical standards, policies and practices are committed to the protection of user information. In general, our business practices limit employee access to confidential information, and limit the use and disclosure of such information to authorized persons, processes and transactions.

How Can You Access and Correct Your Information?
You may request access to all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain in our database by emailing us using the contact form provided to you within the site structure of our website.

Do We Disclose Information to Outside Parties?
We may provide aggregate information about our customers, sales, website traffic patterns and related website information to our affiliates or reputable third parties, but this information will not include personally identifying data, except as otherwise provided in this privacy policy.

What About Legally Compelled Disclosure of Information?
We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights.

Permission to Use of Materials
The right to download and store or output the materials in our website is granted for the user's personal use only, and materials may not be reproduced in any edited form. Any other reproduction, transmission, performance, display or editing of these materials by any means mechanical or electronic without our express written permission is strictly prohibited. Users wishing to obtain permission to reprint or reproduce any materials appearing on this site may contact us directly.

Terms & Conditions

Donation Refund Policy

We are grateful for your donation and support of our organization. If you have made an error in making your donation or change your mind about contributing to our organization please contact us. Refunds are returned using the original method of payment. If you made your donation by credit card, your refund will be credited to that same credit card.

Automated Recurring Donation Cancellation

Ongoing support is important to enabling projects to continue their work, so we encourage donors to continue to contribute to projects over time. But if you must cancel your recurring donation, please notify us.